FYI I'm posting here , with his permission , some comments about the book from one of the members of my REH Comics Group . Rick like many here has been critical about this book but as you can see he's modified his opinion somewhat.

Terry


"Now that I have a preview copy let me state that the game's been changed, or at least tweaked in my favor.

The book is improved enough over the Chronicle edition that I have no doubt that I would buy it.

Few reservations are left. While I'm still not crazy about the coloring the people at DHC did tweak the color enough to make even faintest line work
dominate the panels. That's right, Barry's art is back in charge.

The color was taken down a notch by subduing some of the redder hues making the skin tone more natural looking and not that orange/red sunburn tone that plagued the previous editions. The real upside is the blues are blue and not muddy color that made blue attire look soiled. This causes all the art to have more clarity and a truer color scheme. This also achieves a much needed balance of the cool and warm hues.

When comparing the Archive with the Chronicle printing the one thing that really stands out, besides the color being toned down, is the more intensified black line work.

From the way things look there was a problem with the deteriorated lines on the copy that DHC was given to scan for the Chronicles editions. That problem can now be seen more clearly. I'm guessing DHC chose to use the colorist to try to shape some of those missing or diminished lines and that's why the original art was overwhelmed by the color. The quality of the lines varied too. The earlier stories were not so bad. But, by The Wrath of Anu and most obviously Thieves in the House you can see where some of the line work is just missing entirely. Consequently these two stories received the most heavy handed coloring initially and it's still apparent in the Archive. But, what the Archive book does better is use a higher contrast for the line work even as they brought down the color intensity. This beefed up the lines and gave them precedence.

All in all this improves the quality of the book significantly.

Couple the better line quality with some very nice scans of all those issues' covers -with the original colors intact- and that makes a handsome if not
perfect volume.

Ladies and gentlemen this is a nice publication and likely the last time this work will be presented in this way. Yeah I'd love it if Barry and DHC buried whatever hatchet they have and Barry restored this himself, lines, color and all. That's not going to happen and I have to endorse this as the best we're going to get and certainly improved over the Chronicles editions.

Get it or don't get it, but this is a nicer book than I expected and I'm here to set that record straight.

PS: Word is that the second volume will be even better due to better source material to work with."



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